Share

Today Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla and SolarCity shareholders have approved the merger between the two companies, with 85% of unaffiliated Tesla shareholders voting in favor. This was the key hurdle before the acquisition could go through.

However, like another important vote last week, the power of personality seems to have overcome these concerns. “This whole deal is driven by Elon Musk and his personality, and his vision of where he is taking Tesla, and I think shareholders bought into it,” Mercom Capital CEO Raj Prabhu told pv magazine.

In terms of what we can expect from the combined company, SolarCity’s rooftop solar offerings will be further integrated with energy storage and promoted to Tesla customers (and vice-versa).

It is unclear if shareholder lawsuits have all been resolved, however analysts do not expect these to stop the deal.

However, there are concerns about execution of Elon Musk’s ambitious plans. Musk said at the shareholder event today that volume production of the new Solar Roof product will begin next summer, at a cost at or below that of a normal roof.

“How they are going to actually vertically integrate in itself is a concern, notes Mercom Capital’s Prabhu. “We have to watch how they execute and hold them accountable in the coming years.”

Share

Christian Roselund

Christian Roselund serves as Americas editor at pv magazine, and joined in 2014. Prior to this he covered global solar policy, markets and technology for Solar Server, and has written about renewable energy for CleanTechnica, German Energy Transition, Truthout, The Guardian (UK), and IEEE Spectrum.

Related

2 comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Keep up to date

pv magazine USA offers daily updates of the latest photovoltaics news. We also offer comprehensive global coverage of the most important solar markets worldwide. Select one or more editions for targeted, up to date information delivered straight to your inbox.

Email*

Select Edition(s)*

Hold Ctrl or Cmd to select multiple editions.

We send newsletters with the approximate frequency outlined for each edition above, with occasional additional notifications about events and webinars. We measure how often our emails are opened, and which links our readers click. To provide a secure and reliable service, we send our email with MailChimp, which means we store email addresses and analytical data on their servers. You can opt out of our newsletters at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of every mail. For more information please see our Data Protection Policy.

Keep up to date

We send newsletters with the approximate frequency outlined for each edition above, with occasional additional notifications about events and webinars. We measure how often our emails are opened, and which links our readers click. To provide a secure and reliable service, we send our email with MailChimp, which means we store email addresses and analytical data on their servers. You can opt out of our newsletters at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of every mail. For more information please see our Data Protection Policy.

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.